Artist to Watch: Hesta Prynn – A True Hustler

It has been a while since I did a serious artist feature. The main reason for that is I am really picky about which artists I choose to discuss, because I do not consider myself as just a music blogger. I do not want my reading audience to be confused with the content as I know we naturally want to categorize things in definite spaces. The thing is, this site gets okay traffic and if I want to do my part in helping an artist succeed, it makes sense to talk about them here. That said, I recently had my sensibilities piqued by a wonderful music upstart from NYC. Meet Hesta Prynn.

It's not often that someone says I'm a genius. 

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Miss Prynn first fell on my radar, thanks to Vince Speelman at Curve. By his recommendation, I explored her website and noticed that she had a very up-to-date focus on her work. Everything that I suggest to my artist friends, like having a prominent form to collect data from new fans and an easy-to-navigate user interface (UI), was on her site. Then I dug even further and found that her site at the time was powered by Topspin. If you don’t know, Topspin is the high-end software for artists that want to build their music empire with direct-to-fan (DtF) capability and the ability to track usable data. Eminem uses Topspin. Paul McCartney uses it too. Your friend’s garage band is not likely to be able to afford it, unless he knows someone. It was then I realized that Hesta was either really connected or she had quite a bit of funding behind her. Come to find out it was the former.

At a recent show headlined by the band Bear Hands at PJ’s Lager House in Detroit, I had the chance to not only see Hesta Prynn live, but I was able to meet her and talk shop with you in regards to her career.  First off, I really dug her stage show (although the sound was a bit of bunk), but my conversation with her was the game changer and sold me as a fan. I was impressed by her business savvy and her desire to succeed. It is not often that I get to witness the blend of talent and commercial knack in a music act. Usually, you find a band that is really talented, but to get the commercial success they have a separate non-band member that really handles all the business dealings. Said band never really seems to understand the 5Ws of their situation, as in they could not replicate if they were put to task. Miss Prynn has a manager, but I think if she wanted to manage another act, she would be quite good at it. Again, that does not make her a better musician, but it is an awesome skill to possess on top of great keyboard and production skills.

In my conversation with Hesta, I let her know that I would like to help artists become more business savvy and upon hearing that she put me to task to tackle an issue she had on her mind. While I will not explicitly state what her issue was, I can say that she was looking figure out how to create product for a demographic that was really new to her. After much prodding, she finally got a quality suggestion out of me, which led to the autographed poster that you see here.

Right now, I have realized I have typed quite a bit. I want to stop now. Do me a favor and check out hestaprynn.com. From my talks with her, she is getting ready to ramp up her engagement with her fans, much like her recent Black Friday Book Club promotion. Officially, she is one of my future “artists to watch.” You heard it here, but you can google her and find support of my statement.